Over thinking, over analysing.

Covers for added dimension

The phenomena of liking songs more after hearing (non-perfect) covers of original songs can sometimes add a new dimension to allow you to appreciate the original even more!

I was watching a drum cover of the new Soilwork album – The Living Infinite I, which by the way is the title track off of their new, absolutely must have, double album.

I came across the cover in the video below. At first I thought that the drummer was simply tracking over the original song, like most guys do, but the I realized the guitar work sounded a little “empty”. I did not investigate thoroughly and attributed the phenomena to (assumed) poor audio mixing.

When the chorus came and I heard the vocals sounded non-Bjorn-like, I thought that it must be a live recording, as nothing was amiss during the first part of the song. Obviously I had to investigate more thoroughly.

Turns out that the entire song is a cover of the original title track for the album, Stabbing The Drama. Some dude was doing the guitars, while Alex Rudinger, the now the ex-drummer of Threat Signal did the drums and Mike Semesky did the vocal work. This is a quote from the Youtube video informations section.

A few months back Threat Signal had some gigs in Ontario, Canada. Bjorn Strid happened to be in the area and we decided that it would be cool to do a live cover of this song and have Bjorn perform with us. The show was a lot of fun and performing with a member of Soilwork was kind of a dream come true for me - I've been a huge fan since I was a kid.
Since I learned this song to perform live I figured I might as well do a video for it. I asked Greg to record guitars for the tune so I wouldn't have to mix in a filtered audio track, and Mike Semesky said he'd be down to record some vocals. So, we decided we'd do a full 'Ordinance-Soilwork' cover. It's definitely safe to say that Soilwork has been a huge influence to all of us (both in Ordinance and Threat Signal!) and doing a full cover of one of their songs with my bros was a lot of fun.
Mixing/Guitars/Keys record by Greg Macklin
Vocals recorded by Mike Semesky
Drums were recorded a few months back, sometime over the summer.

Now the interesting thing about Mike Semesky (formerly of the HAARP Machine etc.), and the reason I recognized his name, is that he will be the new (harsh) vocalist for the Danish melodic death metal band Raunchy. The should just about be recording their latest album round about now. Here is a snippet off their latest record, which very quickly made its way to the “most-played tab” in my music player.

Although generally speaking their older stuff has a bit more grunt and in an attempt to avoid digressing too badly, I will leave you with one more song to contemplate, the title track off the album Confusion Bay.

I often look at Youtube covers of songs that I like a whole lot. Even if given the choice between seeing the original artist do a an instrumental play through and a cover by a guy in his bedroom, I think I would prefer seeing the cover. The reasoning behind this is not exactly clear in my mind, but I think it has to do with the appreciation and admiration for the original musician that both the cover artist and myself share. Seeing someone else attempt playing the particular does justice to the original by accentuating every small element that makes the song what it is, albeit in the absence thereof in the cover version.

Here is another cover of a song, to which I might have contributed half of the views on Youtube.

Anyway, all of this reminds me of a simpler time (during my school days) when I could enter my “music room” at my parents’ house and play the entire Creed – Human Clay album on my guitar back to front, being annoyed with my mistakes, but rocking out by me lonesome, feeling like a super hero/rock god. It was never truly about aspiring to become a true rock star, it was always about appreciating the music more intensely, which I now get to do by-proxy, thanks to a selection of very talented guys and girls on Youtube.

P.S. I have purposely avoided mentioning piano covers, as it deserves more attention than a note this post.